Page 68 of Exposing Adonis

Chapter 31

Callum

“Stop!Stop!”Alexsaid,cutting his eyes to me, “How can you defend this bitch? She was the one who stabbed you and left you for dead.”

“He has a point!” Lea said, pointing one finger towards the sky in aeureka!gesture. “You should probably go.”

I scoffed. The woman’s sense of humor was something else. Unless she was trying to get rid of me for my own safety. But that was too flattering of a thought to dwell on. And as my wife, she should know better by now.

“I love you, brother,” I said my gun trailing on Alex’s head. “But if you hurt my wife … I. Will. Kill. You.” I pronounced every word as carefully as I could. There was no doubt in my mind that I would kill anyone and everything, including myself, for her.

“Your wife?” Alex looked confused, looking between us, then staring at our ring fingers, seeing the metal signs of matrimony. Then he scoffed, then laughed maniacally. “I can’t fucking believe you …”

“So much for keeping it under wraps.” She rolled her eyes at me, and I shrugged.

“You’re wearing my ratherlargering on your finger.” I nodded at her hand where the sparkling pearl and diamond glinted in the overhead light. “It was bound to come up eventually.”

“This marriage is off to a great start.”

“You marriedher?” Alex’s laughter subsided. “Rashid hires you to kill her, and not only did you fuck her, but you left the world’s most desirable woman to marryheras well?”

He laughed again, and I wanted to punch him in the face. No one got to disparage my wife in front of me. But I refrained, quietly biding my time until I could get us out of this situation.

“He does have a point, Callum,” Lea shrugged. “We should discuss an annulment. This was obviously a mistake. Why don’t you get out of here and go talk to a priest about it? I’m sure you’ve got some strings you can pull …”

“I’m not leaving, so you can forget your bullocks plan,” I yelled at her. “I will kill him if he hurts you.”

“You wouldn’t dare, Callum,” Alex’s voice was cruel. I had never heard him like this in all the years I’d known him.

Lea was still calm, her face serene, her hands out in a sort of surrender. She was calculating something in her mind and I wasn’t sure what it was or how I could help.

“I’ll take her down, Cal,” Alex said. “You didn’t think that I knew she was the Ferryman? Huh?” He laughed like a fucking bond villain. “Who do you think hired her to kill the Butcher? Hmm? Or Rashid’s son? Hmm?” He was shaking, his anger getting the best of him. His emotions would take over him. “But you fucked it up, you heroic, naive son of a bitch!” The gun turned toward me.

That’s right, fucker. Turn your anger to me, and away from her.

“Rashid’s cousin was going to give me that money. Then we were going to take over Kemet. Fucking oil. It was always more lucrative than gold or medicine.” He wasn’t wrong. Weapons and machines of power were more lucrative than food, and medicine, which is why people starved, but gasoline continued to flow.

“Jeeps. Cars. Engines …” Alex was spewing a Machiavellian rant. “That’s where the money always fucking was. No one cares if people die as long as the cars run!” He laughed as if he was pointing out the greatest irony of life. “But you fucked it up, by telling Rashid to give everything to thepoorandneedy.” He said those words like they were the most detestable things on earth. “You’re the reason this all happened.”

Things were clicking into place.Click. Click. Snap.Like the cogs of a machine finding purchase. And at the center of every disaster was Alex. Cool, and calculated, his fingers twitching over a chess board.

His barrel shook as rage overtook him.

Lea’s hands twitched. It was small. Infinitesimal. But I had observed her with such an obsession that I could read the signs.

She grabbed Alex’s hand and pushed it up, pointing the gun up over our heads. With a flick of her thumb, the magazine dropped, and she curled her finger into the trigger well and pulled. The single shot fired to the ceiling, plaster falling down around us. The slider in the backwards and open position. It was empty.

She reached into the pocket of her jeans, her butterfly knife slicing through the air into Alex’s throat. His jugular split open and blood spurted to the floor.

Jason turned his weapon towards her and fired two shots at Lea just as she turned Alex’s body towards him as a human shield.

One of Jason’s shots went wide, harmlessly hitting the wall. The other hit Alex in the spine. He screamed in pain. The blood sprayed all over Lea as the bullet’s trajectory was diffused and let out in an angry, ugly exit wound and into her gut.

I fired center mass, into his chest. He stayed rooted to where he stood. His mind still hadn’t registered that his body was dead. He fell to his knees. Then to the side, his jaw slack, as the blood blossomed like a rose around his head.

Lea’s legs gave out, falling to her knees, Alex landing beside her.

She was gasping for air, but she was fading. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

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